HL Deb 11 June 1969 vol 302 cc643-61

2.54 p.m.

LORD SOPER rose to call attention to the problem facing peoples and Governments, in this and other countries, of reconciling material objectives, including industrial growth and greater productivity, with deeper social objectives, including responsible and effective participation within society; and to call upon Her Majesty's Government to examine ways of evaluating this problem within a democratic society; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I do so with a certain diffidence and trepidation, for two reasons which I will quickly explain. To begin with, it is a very large topic, not easily resolvable into concrete terms and possibly not fashioned to the kind of specific answers which might attract topics of another nature. Nevertheless, your Lordships will probably think that this is not an inappropriate place in which from time to time to embark upon large-scale ventures of thought such as the one that is contained in this particular Motion.

Then, again, it is an imprecise Motion. It is semantically, perhaps, far from impeccable, but I hope that noble Lords will not think that it is crafty in its construction. Part of the problem of the issue with which I invite your Lordships to be concerned this afternoon is that precisely to describe it is almost as difficult as adequately to answer it. Yet I venture to commend to your Lordships that this is a question of peremptory importance, and I hope that the way in which it has been set forth on the Order Paper will attract the kind of constructive and useful comments which I have every reason to believe will be forthcoming.

That there is a problem, however imperfectly set out in the words of the Motion, your Lordships will, I suggest, have no doubt. There is—and for this reason the introduction of the words about other countries is found in the Motion—a cosmic, or at least a global, reaction against certain of the manifest conditions at the present time. This is represented, not conclusively but exuberantly, by student reaction in many of the affluent countries and one or two of those which are not affluent. It is represented by a mood of cynicism of which I am sure your Lordships will be aware; a sense of diffidence about ultimate objectives and a distaste for a civilisation which in many respects seems to offer, not the fruits and benefits of the society which is irenical and happy, but a multiplication of gadgets which in their turn probably exacerbate the problem rather than tend to solve it.

I must be careful not to indulge in a jeremiad: I have no intention of so doing. I must be equally careful not to preach a sermon, although I shall not endeavour to disguise my own preoccupation with certain spiritual consequences of what I have to say. I hope that the consequent debate will enlighten—as I have every reason to think it will—the problem, and may indeed be of some help to those sitting in another place, who have to deal more immediately with some aspects of it. I should like to talk of the problem, if I may, for a little whole under three heads, which are not inclusive but suggestive. If it be true that, without studying Wordsworth in detail, there are a great many people to-day who feel that The world is too much with us… and Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours"; and if indeed we have looked out upon a world where so much invites and yet so much staggers us with its capacity for evil, is it not true that one of the preliminary conditions of this state of mind is the general decline in the sense of social objectives as being credible and viable?

Let me begin with the Christian Church. There has been a manifest decline of faith, the faith ultimately in the objectives and light of the Kingdom of God, or in the eternity of life. This decline of faith may indeed be our fault. I should be ready to accept the proportion of blame which must necessarily fall to those who are professionally interested in the manifestation of the Christian truths. But I think none of your Lordships will be in any doubt that the sense of social objectives which can be attained has manifestly decreased in the minds of people who at the end of the First World War still maintained many of the ideals with which they entered it but who to-day are preoccupied with much of the material and immediate considerations because the prospect that beckoned their fathers has ceased to beckon them.

If we take some, cold comfort on the proposition that "If the Methodists are doing badly, then thank God the Baptists are doing worse", the proposition is probably as true of our Communist friends. I can remember with what confidence forty years ago they were advocating the coming together of all the workers of the world, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the elimination of the nation-State, the overcoming of the national prejudices and the coming into being of a classless society. I have just come back from Tower Hill, where you will hear nothing of the sort to-day. You will hear immediate disagreements with present policies, and loud and somewhat extravagant claims as to what ought to be done, but the sense of social objective in this has diminished almost to the point of vanishing. I am pretty certain that my friends in the Labour Movement will not disagree when I add that within the Labour Movement there has been a decline of those overall and inviting prospects of the kind of society which would more or less quickly arrive when some form of Socialism was put into practice. It is for this reason that any attempt to solve the problem, which obviously needs to be solved, of relating immediate fears to larger and more ultimate social consequences does not become an easy or even a credible task for those who have indeed lost their sense of idealism.

The second, and equally important characteristic, symptom or cause of this problem lies, I feel, within the field of alienation—a word much used and much abused, but nevertheless a word which has meaning for a great many people to-day who feel themselves isolated and fragmented in a world in which they would fain make some contribution and have some participation. For instance, how can a worker in (shall we say?) a Ford plant in this country feel his sense of participation when he realises that the ultimate decision in these macro-corporations, which tend to proliferate, is not within his power to control or even to advise upon, but is settled far away in Detroit? This may or may not be an accurate description of the way in which business is conducted, but it is a prime reason for his feeling that participation is an idle word in that connection, for he can have no participation. Surely this is also true of those we hear so much about—the presumptive Gnomes of Zurich, whether or not they exist. It is nevertheless true that the impression gains credence in many quarters that decisions made in these Islands are not finally meant to be carried out but are consequent and dependent upon decisions made independently of what a Government in these Islands feels is right, and rather are made in terms of an international financial situation.

I would have thought there is one other characteristic which ought to be added. My own experience, for what it is worth, is that the nuclear age is responsible for more of the sense of alienation than almost anything else. If indeed our hope of peace and tranquillity in the world depends on the deterrent of absolute horror, then we have abdicated reason. We can have no part in this. Not only does absolute power corrupt; absolute power occludes all other sense and all other programmes. Once again these may not be accurate descriptions of what is happening but they are prime causes of the kind of alienation in which many people may have no reason to think there is a distinction which can be made between immediate objectives and broader social issues.

The other day Mr. Grimond, who seems to be preparing belated fruit from the reading of Tawney's Acquisitive Society, was talking about the "battery hen civilisation." This is again an extravagance, but it is neverthless an extravagance that contains a kernel of truth. F. R. Leavis, in his somewhat ugly phrase, "the technologico-Benthamite civilisation", points out again that in this particular civilisation as he sees it participation is almost precluded by the complexity and the difficulties which are to be found, not only in a particular country but indeed in the world.

Finally, and perhaps more important than the other two in its consequences, a different kind of materialism has settled upon us, for our ill. I am not one who feels it necessary in the interests of Christianity to deny materialistic considerations. I reflect that it was one of the great Bishops of the Anglican Church, Archbishop Temple, who said that of all the world's religions Christianity is the most materialistic. It seems to me there is a sound argument for a materialistic approach to questions of productivity and industrial growth where people are hungry, are deprived of the necessary things which go to make life worth living, and therefore there is a kind of inbuilt credibility about the materialistic approach in conditions of poverty and destitution. But, living in the world of technological rather than industrial growth, would it not commend itself to your Lordships that materialism, which once upon a time had its own inbuilt sense of purpose, has now become nothing more than a means masquerading as an end? It is perfectly true that we should attend to the feeding of the hungry before we preach sermons, or even advocate political liberties for them; but in my judgment it is quite absurd to go on creating and, alongside that process of productivity, to adduce added reasons for the desires which ought to be promoted, and must be promoted, if these goods are to be sold. This seems to me to be a crazy process which has no ultimate validity but produces of itself a kind of cynicism and hopelessness in which many people seek to live day by day.

In these regards, and in these matters, the problem seems to me to stand out as an acute problem which first of all needs the most careful analysis, in order that it may be stated in its true terms, but also requires and demands an answer if the civilisation which we cherish is not to go by default because of the materialism, the alienation and the lack of faith. For if indeed we lack faith, if we lack the hope, and if we lack the charity—a triumvirate of virtues in short supply—it would not seem to me that we have a very inviting future. However, this is a problem to be faced and not a catastrophe merely to be recorded.

I come now to the second part of the Motion, which calls upon Her Majesty's Government to evaluate this problem in terms of a democratic society, and, of course, moves for Papers. What is happening in many of the societies of the world to-day—and it is a rather terrifying experience to tot them up and to listen—is that there is no need for participation, there is no requirement of faith, and there is no necessary exercise of love. It is claimed of some of the apartheid societies, that they are prepared to do everything required for the African provided that he does not want to do it for himself, and the great problem that faces democratic society is that it must open its doors and its windows to those who would participate. Therefore the required attention that I hope this particular debate will give to the practical aspects of this problem perhaps represents the most useful contribution we can make to its solution.

I would not disguise my own feelings and conviction that an ultimate sense of faith—a world-embracing rather than a world-renouncing faith—is indispensable in any democratic society which aspires to success and proclaims participation. Whether that can be vested in the traditional Christian beliefs, you, my Lords, will have to decide. Whether it can be vested in the Communist faith I would find myself more readily able to answer when time has rendered the basic claims of the Communist argument unsound. But it will not be a recognisable and worthwhile concept of ultimate purpose and participation to enshrine enlightened self-interest, as some perhaps are inclined to do. Enlightened self-interest, after all is only the baptismal name for selfishness, and that cannot be reconciled with the collective activity and friendship, nor indeed with any high ideal.

What the Government—and indeed any Government—must do is to seek by processes which it has, and by the exercise of processes to which it is prepared to commit itself, to find such means of bringing to bear upon immediate issues the light and the prospect of a deep and permanent consequence. I think that that has been lamentably lost. I am not here to assess blame, but would not noble Lords agree that the prevalent sense of cynicism is largely due to the inability of some people to see what relationship an immediate programme or Bill has to these ultimate and far-reaching ambitions and considerations? In that regard it may well be that Her Majesty's Government will think of the kind of public manifestation of problems and their solution as found in Congressional Committees and hearings in the United States. Due modification would have to be undertaken, but this is not an unfruitful source, I think, of possible participation.

The noble Earl, Lord Arran, will be bringing before your Lordships at a suitable time his proposition for voluntary service as an extension of the desk period of education. To me that has great virtue, and I cannot see how it is possible to look with any confidence upon the future in relation to youth and student life unless the possibility of this practical participation gives substance and significance to the more intellectual concepts of what the good life ought to be. I am quite sure that the Church has its part to play, and I am equally certain that the profit motive has little, if anything, to contribute. I believe in the revolutionary concept of Socialism, and have done so for many years, but I think it must be linked credibly with the abolition of the whole concept of power politics. In this I may be egregious, but I make my testimony to it.

Finally, it is the redemption of the political system as such which is perhaps the most urgent of all the tasks with which we have to confront ourselves. I do not know to what extent my own experience is general, but I have never in the whole forty years in which I have been trying to talk about politics found such a mood of cynicism as I find to-day. I set it against the evidence which is forthcoming, and to which I hope reference will be made this afternoon, of those voluntary participations made in Voluntary Service Overseas, the attempts made to feed the hungry, and the deep sense that many young people and older people have of an obligation, which has I think more to do with the eleemosynary virtues of the Muslim faith than with the creative possibility of feeding all the hungry who are to be fed. Nevertheless, it is a magnificent exhibition of the desire to participate, and I, for one, thank God for it.

Having said all that I cannot but conclude by reflecting that when I began to take an interest in politics I had the strong impression that most meetings were concerned with a crusade, that most speakers were speaking as if for a revival, that the platform was not entirely unlike a penitent form, that the penitent was required to believe and, having become converted, to go out and become an evangelist. This may sound a little pompous, but nevertheless is there any answer short of this sense of deep participation in a community where the proliferation of goods, the whole sense of creative activity in industry, contribute to what as yet it seems we have so miserably failed fully to understand—what is the good life? An old lady in my church said to me that she never knew what fellowship was until she went to bingo. Though I began by laughing, I ended almost by crying, because it is a most penetrating analysis of the emptiness of so much that goes for what is called modern affluent society. We have the tremendous task of sharing the goods we have, rather than turning them into the means of our own happiness, and it is for that reason that I ventured to set my name to this debate, this symposium, I hope, and to hope that out of it will come a sense of obligation and practical consequences of which we shall be proud and for which others will be grateful. I beg to move for Papers.

3.15 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD

My Lords, the House will, I am sure, agree that the noble and reverend Lord, Lord Soper, in bringing forward this Motion to-day has thrown down to us something of a challenge. He has challenged us to range a good deal deeper and a good deal wider than it is our custom to do in one fell swoop. His admirable speech, fluent as ever, has confirmed that he is inviting us indeed to survey in one broad field personal affairs of faith, social affairs, national affairs and even international affairs, in an attempt, as he put it towards the end of his speech, to disentangle means from ends. If I may say so, I think the noble Lord put this rather more clearly in his speech than perhaps he did in his Motion.

It is plain enough that social advance is integrally bound up with economic growth, and there is really no problem of reconciliation there. The problem is rather, as the noble Lord has just said in his speech, to discriminate more clearly between means and ends. At any rats, this is the topic which, like him, I propose to pursue. In fact as I was thinking what I might say about it I confess that, rather like him, I felt more like a clergyman preparing a sermon than a Member of Parliament, and if I inadvertently address your Lordships as "dearly beloved" perhaps you will understand.

One cannot embark on a debate like this without posing fundamental questions. What is life for? What are our powers for? To what end ought we to devote our time, our talents and our resources? St. Matthew and St. Luke depict Our Lord grappling with these problems during his temptation in the wilderness. That is the word[...] in Greek, which I think your Lordships will agree is better translated "testing" in the wilderness. Modern industrial city civilisation is undergoing that same test now. The first part of the answer to these fundamental testing questions is that "Man shall not live by bread alone". And this, of course, has nothing to do with balancing our diet. I found to my surprise and horror that I had to make this point clear to a very distinguished scientist one day. The assertion, "Man shall not live by bread alone" is of course an assertion that it is not by satisfying our basic instincts for shelter, sex, self-preservation, thirst as well as hunger that man will fulfil his destiny.

This truth we have to grasp, despite our advertisements, whose designers understand our instincts a good deal better than we do ourselves; and our advertisements show that many believe that this guide to the way life should be lived is an illusion that is still very much with us. On the other hand, in defence of advertisers, if it is necessary for us to pass through this test, to learn to live with our instincts but not to be led astray by them, then we have to acknowledge that our advertisers are playing a useful role. This is a point I now leave, sensitive that my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn is chairman of the Advertising Standards Association and better able to deal with that point than I am.

The rest of Our Lord's temptation or testing in the wilderness was to devote Himself and His divine powers to the pursuit of fame or to the pursuit of power, two further false objectives with which I would suggest the twentieth century is quite as familiar as the first. The final and the right answer to the whole testing process, made clear by the whole of Our Lord's life and ministry and death, is that life is given to us to be offered back to God by our own free choice in loving service to his world.

If that is man's destiny, if that be the true and ultimate end for which we were created, by what means ought it to be pursued, and, in particular, what role have Governments to play? That, I take it, is the problem posed to us by the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Soper. I should like to suggest that the role of Government should be no more than that of providing the framework for that free choice—a framework in which it can be learned and demonstrated that it is, in actual fact, more blessed to give than to receive. And when the noble and reverend Lord asks for an evaluation, is it not perhaps success in providing this framework for free choice that can perhaps be measured?

In that framework for free choice I mention now just a few features among many others which seem to me to have a bearing upon this debate. One feature, surely, is that people should have something to spare—a degree of affluence. Surely, there is no choice possible when both ends do not meet. As a means of extending free choice it seems to me that the pursuit of affluence is admirable. As an end in itself, I would agree with the noble Lord, it is fatal. Secondly, a secure home base, at best a home of one's own, at least the maximum security of tenure. Perhaps other noble Lords will be developing that point. Thirdly, everyone's faculties developed to the full, so that this free choice can be made with discrimination. Our admirable education service is the main factor here; but if it is to be seen as part of a framework for making free choices, then perhaps we should aim to put more emphasis on understanding and less upon knowledge, to impart experience rather than facts.

Fourthly, the chance to choose wrongly. A framework for a free choice must surely allow for this, and a permissive society is bound to be the result, with a number of features in it which we may all deplore. But surely this is the price that has to be paid. Parliament must, of course, set limits to the dangers of a permissive society and safeguard law and order, because free choices are quite impossible under a state of anarchy. The laws that are needed, as one can see if one looks at it in this context, are laws that bite upon the law-breaker without shackling everyone else.

Fifthly, a framework for free choice must provide a choice of one's own. That is a point that the noble Lord mentioned especially when he was talking about apartheid Governments. For this it is required that central and local government do for people only what people cannot properly and effectively do for themselves. This means that defence is a legitimate sphere for government; diplomacy, law and order, hospitals, preferably by local government; schools for those who do not want to make provision for themselves; welfare and insurance for those who cannot make provision for themselves.

But outside that, whenever Governments make choices for people which people can make for themselves, it surely is a retrograde step, even when the Government choose right. It is doubly retrograde when, as so often happens, the Government usurp a choice that should be personal and then make the wrong decision. One sure sign, I believe, that we British have had some success in building up this framework for free choice is that we have to make laws to keep people from flocking into our small country, while the Communists have to build walls, such as that in Benin, to keep people from getting out of their huge empire. This, at any rate, is one piece of evaluation.

I come now to one final feature in my framework for free choice. The keystone of this framework is more important, I believe, than any franchise, and that is an ample outlet for voluntary service Already the scope for it in our country is impressive: for councillors in local government 40,000 places, not including 60,000 parish councillors or the aldermen, or the places waiting to be filled by opposition candidates. Justices of the Peace: places here for another 16,000 to 18,000, This is a body which has been giving voluntary service for something up to 600 years. Shop stewards, another 100,000 to 150,000. This is the group which has not yet perhaps fully earned respect from all quarters, but the need and scope for which is now clearer than ever.

To turn to calmer waters, churchwardens, scope for another 20,000 to 25,000. Not many of your Lordships know that this is no sinecure. Service by young people in the community, a fruitful field for all sorts of experiments. The noble Lord mentioned V.S.O. There are openings in this country, to take one organisation alone, Task Force, for 7,000 boys and girls. I think those are figures from only eight London boroughs. Incidentally, notice here what a distortion it is if we look at things in this way, that we should provide a youth service to provide something for young people, when surely what is needed, and what they require, is a framework in which to give service.

Of course, finally in this context, the women—the real exponents and exemplars of every kind of self-sacrificing, unpaid, loving service. To mention the 1 million women that the W.R.V.S. have ready for service in an emergency does not mean that we overlook mothers and housewives who are giving service day in and day out. But, alas! under this heading into the adverse side of the balance go the closing of all the opportunities for voluntary service that were afforded by the Civil Defence Corps and the Territorial Army.

These features, then, in this framework are just some of the yardsticks by which I suggest we can measure progress towards the kind of society for which I believe we were created. The test of a Government is their success in providing that framework for free choice. That is a test, which I hope our wary and enlightened electorate will soon apply. The test of a society is the kind of choices people make within that framework. That, I should think, is not easy or proper for us to try to evaluate, for, "'Judgment is mine,' saith the Lord". But both Government and people are in any case still left, with St. Paul, resting with the yet more fundamental problem, namely: For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. as he wrote a considerable time ago to his church at Rome. The answer to that problem and to that frustration lies deeper still on the Cross of Calvary and in our need for Grace—subjects, as your Lordships will quickly agree, more suitable for the pulpit than for this Dispatch Box.

3.31 p.m.

LORD BESWICK

My Lords, I join with the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, in thanking my noble friend Lord Soper for introducing this Motion, and I would take the opportunity humbly to offer to him the thanks, which I know will be supported by all in the Labour movement, for the example which he sets in his personal life in keeping before us the social incentives of which we speak. This is an occasion for pooling ideas, not for scoring contrived political Party points. On the other hand, if the debate is to have value, as I am sure it will, we need to be candid. It is a great opportunity for letting our Parliamentary hair down. Though I speak from this Box I cannot claim to be speaking for any particular Government Department, and I hope that in that somewhat disembodied spirit I shall be allowed the opportunity afforded to others to cast around, to think aloud, to express doubts and make suggestions, so that at the end of the day we may find ourselves nearer the truth that we seek, and in a position to give, as well as to get, some guidelines for the Government of this country.

One truth is, as my noble friend Lord Soper said, that the malaise which apparently affects our society, of excessive protest, chronic complaining, apparent lack of sense of social purpose, faces other peoples and Governments. Anyone who seriously suggests that the Labour Government is the cause of this malaise is just being false to himself. Anyone who makes out that the cure is simply to turn to a Conservative Government is playing a Party game that is not relevant to our time. At the same time we must accept—and I readily accept—that the hopes placed at the outset upon the Labour Government have not as yet been realised.

One question which might fairly be asked in the context of this Motion is whether the Government's concentration on the material objectives—the balance of payments, industrial growth and greater productivity—has not in fact impeded the achievement of that very objective which, without regard to electoral popularity, we have so honestly and determinedly sought. Would more apparent regard to social incentives in fact have secured us better material results? Would our society have been more efficient, in material terms if we had tried harder to reconcile, as my noble friend Lord Soper puts it, material objectives with deeper social objectives? The incessant emphasis on the national balance of payments seems to have led individuals to look first to their own short-term financial advantage. All the talk about combating national inflation has only increased the number of those who make short-sighted selfish attempts to safeguard their own personal position. If one person hedges against inflation he may well succeed: if we all hedge then we shall almost certainly create the very situation we are trying to avoid. If the national climate is designed to emphasise material objectives, then we should not be surprised if the same climate over-much encourages materialism in personal and in group effort.

Let us look at what is happening. We all agree that providence and thrift are virtues: indeed they may well be said to combine material with social objectives. But whilst the National Savings Movement does so much to encourage good old-fashioned thrift, other organisations spend immeasurably more in developing quite other emotions: on getting rich quick; on beating the Index; on being cleverer than the other fellow. I got the advertisements that I have in my hand from one day's Press. One had the headlines, "How rich? How quick?". Another (and this, I suppose, must have cost some hundreds of pounds) said: "The rich get richer, and here's how to join them." Or again, "Making £16,030 is easy: Try it and see." I do not decry the unit trust movement as such, and I would certainly not pretend that it is wrong to buy equity shares. But this is a very long way from Samuel Smiles; this is a very long way from the kind of thrift I was taught when I first took out a savings book in the Co-operative Penny Bank. If they do these things in the green tree, what then shall be done in the dry? If this is capitalism as practised by the small people, what about the big people? What about the higher reaches of finance? It may seem clever to go out of money into goods, but it all helps to reduce the value of the money which one still needs to hold. The more tax havens there are, the greater they make the problem they seek to avoid.

This fashionable selfish attitude is not, of course, the prerogative of the owners of capital, large of small. It is increasingly conspicuous with management. The obsession started in the private sector but is now spreading to the public sector. There was the recent great debate in the country on the salaries of management of nationalised companies. It is not for me to criticise the decision which the Government eventually took on the pay of Board Chairmen. I accept the practical difficulties. I know all about the theory of the headroom. But I simply cannot fit this cult of the £20,000 a year with the principles which led me to support public ownership.

Economic efficiency is one element ", said R. H. Tawney (who was quoted a moment ago) in his essay on "Conditions of Economic Liberty", which I think many of us would do well to re-read. But he went on: but only one and not the most important element in questions which…arc human and spiritual…and in the larger sense of the world political". What we were after, in Tawney's words, was a new quality in the moral and intellectual atmosphere". This atmosphere does not exactly exude from the bright new executives of our technological society. I am all in favour of incentives, and I believe in making a proper payment, but the quest for £20,000-plus a year is now not so much a matter of paying the grocer's bills but more a way of life. It is a subject of conversation. I occasionally hear these people describing one another. They say of so-and-so not that he has this important characteristic or that; they say not that he has this quality of character or that; but, most importantly, that he is someone picking up x thousands a year. If money is to be the all-important concern; if the concept of service is not to find a place, and an important place, in the motivations of our technological leaders, we shall be a poor nation in any sense of the term. The old aristocracy is on its way out, but new leaders with computerised minds, the plastic culture of the Sunday supplements, and a price tag of x-thousands a year, will be a very tawdry replacement.

The Leader of the Liberal Peers claimed in a recent debate—and I am sorry that there are no Liberal spokesmen in the debate—that in the United States these executives would be picking up so much more. That may well be a statistical fact, although I do not know what it proves. It certainly is not conclusive proof that the great American democracy is achieving the deeper social objectives which we all seek. I noticed that The Times the ether day, discussing the Fortas case, the Bucher case, the murder of Dr. Luther King and many of the university conflicts, under the heading "Crisis of Belief", quoted some words which Walter Lippman wrote some years ago. That great journalist then said, Why is it bad to shrug off the ideal standards in politics". And he went on to say, It is a mistake to suppose that there is satisfaction and the joy of life in a self-indulgent generation, in one primarily in the pursuit of private wealth and privilege pleasure… If those who purport to lead our productive effort insist on reckoning their status in society in terms of thousands a year, how much more difficult it is going to be for us to try to get organised workers to accept a national incomes policy. And there are those in the trade union movement who are only too ready to magnify the flaws in the social structure. I recall the remark of one general secretary, a confirmed opponent of an incomes policy, when the possibility of co-operation was put to him. He replied: "I will tell you the story of another general secretary who was sent out by his executive to negotiate with a particular company. He was told not to concede on pay, to get best possible fringe benefits and to see what he could do on hours. He reported back after hard negotiations. He told of a major pay award, of improved fringe benefits, and working hours restricted to Thursdays only. The report was considered in silence for some moments and then an executive member said, 'Brother Chairman, I move that we accept the award with regard to pay and fringe benefits; but what about this demand to work on Thursdays?'". That was told as a joke and meant to be funny, but it was also intended to convey an attitude. That is not organising workers; it is organising selfishness. That is the attitude of a minority, but it is actively pursued by that minority. It can fairly be said to be a result of generations of struggle, but it certainly is one of the obstacles to the sort of advance which my noble friend Lord Soper has described.

I have dwelt over-long with problems. I do not want to pre-empt constructive proposals which I believe will emerge later in the debate, but I offer one or two conclusions. First, we may be sure that no magic new economic device or financial formula can, of itself, gain us our material objectives. Devaluation, revaluation, moving exchange rates, import controls—any one in certain circumstances could help, but none is a substitute for the social incentive which could spark off the extra effort needed. Secondly, I suggest that while much needs to be done, and done over a very wide front, we must not decry or underestimate what in fact is being done.

Early training is essential if we are to get the right sense of social responsibility later in life. I am impressed by what the Secretary of State for Education tells me is now being done in the educational field. The far-reaching programme of research and development initiated by the Schools Council, on a curriculum designed to bring home to pupils the contribution they can make to society, will no doubt in due course have quite significant results, and I hope that my noble friend the Leader of the House will be able to expand on some of the projects undertaken. The demand for student participation in the running of universities, which emerged so clearly in our recent debate on student problems, is itself a healthy sign of a readiness to accept responsible citizenship. And amidst all the excesses of student unrest we must recognise the strong moral concern over great public issues. While headlines tend to be given to picturesque sit-downs and the more stupid behaviour of individual students, it is this same generation, as my noble friend Lord Soper and the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said, which provides a thousand and more young people for weekend marathon walks in aid of OXFAM or "Shelter". It is the same generation now going out as volunteers to Africa, Asia and elsewhere for V.S.O. and other similar bodies. A young niece of mine doing some voluntary work, under the auspices of Task Force, for an old-age pensioner was surprised when he said to her one afternoon, "There was nothing like this in my day".

In the industrial field so much needs to be done and so much patience and understanding is needed. An extraordinarily interesting background research paper, provided for the Donovan Commission by Mr. Alan Fox, dismissed what was described as an "orgy of avuncular pontification", and went on to say that we should concentrate on analysing the causes and constraints that are shaping group structures and relations. Well, my Lords, we are making progress. The Commission on Industrial Relations has been established as a novel extension, as the White Paper says, in public involvement in industrial relations. It is not for me at this time to speculate on what forthcoming legislation will include in this particular issue of industrial relations, but the very nature of the argument going on about the contents of this proposed Bill is an indication as to how far we have gone and what progress we have made.

Parliament will have a very great responsibility in the weeks and months ahead, dealing with industrial legislation and the development of policy in prices, incomes and dividends. Having come so far, surely we can go further still. And, I stress again, it is the concept of social justice inherent in industrial reform and an incomes policy which must be emphasised, understood and accepted if the material benefits are to be achieved. And if we are intent on getting social priorities right, here again we should realise what has been done. Let us realise that, though there is talk of cuts in social services, the truth is we are doing more now than ever before. This is the fact—record house building, record school building, record hospital building. For the first time in our history we are spending more on education than we are on the Armed Forces in military preparation.

But the trouble is to get this over; to have the kind of two-way communication between Government and people in which these things are understood. This, it seems to me, is very near the core of the problem. How, in a democracy, where one side of Parliament spends so much of its energies in proving the other side wrong, how in peace-time, do we harness the maximum co-operation of the people? Arnold. Toynbee, in A Study of History, said: When a civilisation is in decline it sometimes happens that a particular technique that has been both feasible and profitable during the growth stage now begins to encounter social obstacles and to yield diminishing economic returns". My Lords, I do not say that Western civilisation is in decline, but I do believe that it is undergoing profound change, and certainly new techniques are needed. What more can be done to convince members of a democracy that short-term, selfish advantage will give neither genuine social satisfaction nor longer-term material advantage? I look forward with interest to what the impressive list of speakers who are to follow will have to say on this subject.